Tag Archives: retail

For those just getting in to the open air markets for extra cash and experimentation of retailing products, or are fully fledged seasonal caravans of scaled product lines and banking wholesale accounts; between May and December you’re getting busy or booked.

Pittsburgh has seen a surge of outdoor markets expand and new venues come to life.

PGHretail has been blessed enough with the opportunity to assist in developing markets and connecting commerce players: consumers + makers. Cedar Arts Market began as an assistance to the flea market that had been slowly picking back up through volunteer organization in the Allegheny Commons East Park.

Through CAM, we joined the Deutschtown Music Festival for their annual July show full of free music provided by 150+ bands, street vendors, beer gardens, and community engagement for the last two years in the same park. Now in their fourth year, the festival organizers are calling all artists to join them this year.

Last August, CAM sponsored the Pittsburgh VegFest in their first-ever event in Allegheny Commons. With their loyal and eager audience, the all-vegan experience has expanded with twice as many vendors and is also in July for 2016. Vendor spaces are strictly for vegan friendly products and

Having moved to organizing a new workshop series after the 2015 CAM outdoor market season closed, PGHretail helped to connect I Made It! Market to the Northside at the new Nova Place (Allegheny Center). With their partnership, the annual IMI! for the Holidays was held for the first time on the Northside. The breadth of artists that Carrie Nardini, owner and organizer, works with is inspiring and central to how IMI! (and Neighborhood Flea) is able to expand and be part of almost every neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

New markets for IMI! this year are: Wholey’s on the weekends, Open Streets, and Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank Feed More Festival.

Specific to the Northside and not a regular selling opportunity; the Block Party Pgh hosts a once of month outdoor block party! The organizers are looking for hyper-local artists and crafters interested in holding a table with kids and/or adult art and/or craft projects. These interactions can be viewed as practice talking about your art, using member participation to build your art, or providing a canvas for public art for the community.

If you’ve made it through to this sentence, you may have ascertained that Cedar Arts Market has been placed on hold for 2016 as we make room to work on other projects and allow our partners to expand on the collective networks built to support communities, in common interest and on common ground.

Recent developments in the Northside for retail are growing with new urban mall re-branding, lofts, hotels, breweries, and more. Local groups collectively developed a marketing video to highlight one of the most prominent business districts in the Northside community, East Ohio Street, which is part of Historic Deutschtown.

Learn more about the neighborhood and business opportunities from the links highlighted at the end of the video:

As of today, we need just $96 more dollars…

to unlock our matching funds and reach our ultimate goal. Each donation, no matter how large or small, will receive an emailed report on all events in the series that you get whether you can attend the workshop(s) or not. Support this programming by donating a small investment of your own at:https://www.ioby.org/project/cam-growing-micro-entrepreneurs

Pittsburgh Retail worked with community groups on the Northside of Pittsburgh to bring another year of Cedar Arts Market to Allegheny Commons East Park. With the help of a supporting grant we were able to sponsor and introduce the first Pittsburgh VegFest this past August.

When offered the opportunity to raise funds for an extension of the program, it was a great time to begin a different series of events that offered skill-sharing for organization and fundamental bookkeeping by using the best available mobile and tech applications out there.

Micro-entrepreneurs aren’t a new thing, what is different though, is the latest technology. Now more than ever are individuals easily able to make a quick investment with rewarding outcomes. Software companies are releasing new partnerships daily that overlap functions to streamline user access, time, and return value on often free programs.

That is where CAM’s new series, Growing Micro-Entrepreneurs, is focusing on and highlighting specific applications, benefits, and tips to streamline the back-end of your retail business. Hey Baby! Boutique owner, Karyn Pope, who creates, markets, and sells her wares throughout Western Pennsylvania has set up a system based on her knowledge and past experience as an accountant.

These workshops are open and free to the public, are intended for beginners and seasoned retailers. If you are new to, or interested in learning more about, mobile POS systems, preparing business taxes, utilizing applications and updated features of favorite office tools like, Google and Excel, then this workshop series is for you.

PGHRetail has been organizing and sponsoring community events and markets since 2011. It’s gratifying to be a resource for opportunities and networking to grow our local economy in a multitude of ways. When groups of people come together for a similar mission, great things happen and attract future prosperity by nurturing those endeavors. Your support means the most to each individual involved, and for that I’d like to thank anyone and everyone who’s been part of this five year journey. To many more moments together for our mutual dreams that no amount of money can buy.

Our organized events will be held in the North Side of Pittsburgh in Allegheny Commons Park. Check out the Events Page for more details about the Cedar Arts Markets.

For more local on-going summer events around the city, there are a few resources PGHretail has worked with in the past below. Many other resources are out there if you’re not seeing events in your neighborhood. Check with your businesses and community groups for their events and opportunities to partner.

We were excited to try out our print advertising for Designer Deals Downtown in the November and December editions in the first local magazine in Pittsburgh, and nationally, to use this new technology in their printed media.

Find NightWire every month at a local distributor and download the app to view more to the ads: videos, websites, and deals!

Want to know more about how to use this new technology for your retail business? Email pghretail [at] gmail.com for your first free consulting meeting.

What deals would you like to see on there? Any local businesses you frequent often on your bus routes you’d enjoy additional rewards at? Go ahead and let us know right here in the comments or by email at pghretail [@] gmail dot com.

Back in October 2013, PGHretail sat down with County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald, and proposed a wide array of alternative transportation ideas. We’ve been able to sit down with key players from the county, city, and Port Authority of Pittsburgh.

In addition to public transportation projects, which directly impact our local retail economy, we addressed the lack of information and support for the Creative Class and Creative Economy. Entrepreneurs, innovators, grassroots organizations, artisans, and skilled craftsman have a huge impact on development in micro-economies within communities. The City of Philadelphia is a great example of how local government can gather information for that demographic, businesses that serve those folks, and non-profit organizations looking to cater funding initiatives. Check out their site: http://creativephl.org/ and particularly, the CultureBlock site that maps resources: http://www.cultureblocks.com/wordpress/

Now, Pittsburgh organizations are trying. Our professional critique is that passively crowd-sourcing, with little marketing efforts, to gather data is a very slow process to obtain information from very busy, focused individuals working hard to build their businesses and projects. We hope that the URA is able to provide funding for a position that actively obtains and updates their latest project: http://launchpgh.com/

If you or someone you know, needs the resources from LAUNCHpgh, suggest their involvement to help establish the important information our growing economic developments need.